Joseph P. Gill (July 13, 1919 - December 17, 2006)[1] was an Americanmagazinewriter and highly prolific comic book scripter. Most of his work was for Charlton Comics, where he co-created the superheroesCaptain Atom, Peacemaker, and Judomaster, among others. Comics historians consider Gill a top contender as the comic-book field's most prolific writer. Per historian and columnist Mark Evanier, Gill "wrote a staggering number of comics. There are a half-dozen guys in his category. If someone came back and said he was the most prolific ever, no one would be surprised."[2]

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Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Joe Gill began writing for comic books for the New York City-based Timely Comics, the first predecessor of Marvel Comics, during the 1940s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books. The vast majority of his work went unsigned, both in the manner of that time and during his staff-writing position at one company from the 1950s to 1980s, making a comprehensive bibliography difficult or impossible to compile. In addition, Gill's Timely stories were actually written, often pseudonymously for Funnies, Inc., an outsource "packager" that created comics on demand for publishers testing the waters of the then-new medium. His earliest confirmed credit is the one-page text story "Following Orders" in Novelty Press' Target Comics vol. 8, #11 (#89), cover-dated January 1948.

As Gill recalled his start in the business, via his brother, Ray Gill, "My brother was an editor at Funnies, Inc., an editorial service that packaged comics for publishers. They put [publisher] [Martin] Goodman — who [owned] Marvel later — into comics, and did the first [comics] in my brother's office".[3] Gill is reportedly among the writers who scripted Captain America for Timely following the departure of character creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in late 1941.[2]

When superheroes fell out of favor in the post-war years, Gill began scripting teen-humor, Western and other genre comics for Timely. Following an industry downturn around 1948, he eventually found his way to the low-budget comic-book publisher Charlton Comics, based in Derby, Connecticut.

There, beginning in the early 1950s, Gill became the company's primary staff writer for the next thirty years. He was known for his speed, often finishing a full-length comics script in a day and writing as much as an estimated 100 to 125 pages a week across a number of genres, from crime fiction to science fiction, romance to war stories.[2][4] Superheroes were a minor part of Charlton; Gill created one of its first, Zaza the Mystic. He also did colorist work for the company.

When Charlton Comics ceased publication in 1986, Gill retired from comic-book scripting save for an occasional freelance story for DC. His final recorded credit is as one of the colorists on the small-press superhero comic Ebony Warrior #2 (June–July 1993), published by Ania. He appeared as a guest, with fellow Charlton alumni Willie Franz and Sam Glanzman, at a New York City comics-convention panel, broadcast Nov. 21, 2000, on the WBAI radio show 'Nuff Said![6]

Gill, who suffered from complications from a fall at the Shady Knoll Health Center in Seymour, Connecticut, and who in the last part of his life spent much time at the Doyle Senior Center, playing pool in the morning and poker in the afternoon, died of undisclosed causes at age 87 in Seymour. There was no funeral, according to his wishes, and his only surviving relative, niece Carol Anderson, took his ashes to a cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where his wife and son are buried.[4]